I, too

Sometimes I get like this

I, too, shall die one day.

I will fade into the shadow

As have so many before me.

On that great and terrible day

The darkness will stretch forth its icy fingers

And oblivion will leap up to engulf me.

As easily as squashing a mosquito,

As effortlessly as stomping on a cockroach;

So fragile is our existence.

Mother Earth will welcome me back into her bosom

And I shall melt into her embrace.

Done and dusted, dust to dust,

Toenails to lashes; ashes to ashes.

My smile will disintegrate into calcium

And my flesh into carbon.

My thoughts shall evaporate into methane,

My fears into nothing,

My humour to humus.

 

Then I shall step into the Unknown,

I will explore the last great mystery;

I will swim the River Styx

And forage for a sop for Cerberus.

I will play a golden harp

Or sweat my sins out in Purgatory.

I shall whirl around in the Ether

Or join the ranks of the Ancestors.

I will sing songs in Valhalla

Or come back as a llama;

Or I shall sleep a heavy slumber

Deep and dark and dreamless,

Sweet and sound and seamless,

And await the Master’s call.

 

I think on this of nights

When I lie in bed, sleepless,

When I think back on my day.

Sometimes my mortality weighs heavily upon my shoulders.

I am a fool to think on it;

 But I am foolish that way.

I also think about the future

And about the past;

I wonder why people do the things they do;

About Destiny, and Fate, and Purpose

And other questions that have no answers.

 

And life will go on without me;

The stars shall weave their course through the sky;

And the earth will keep on spinning

An End shall come for each Beginning

Long after the laughter has faded from my eye;

One day, I too shall die.